Temporary roads must be built whenever work must be performed in undeveloped areas. For example, when drilling oil and gas wells, roads must be built in order to allow trucks and equipment access to the well site.
There are frequently regulations associated with performing work in environmentally sensitive areas, which require the site to be returned to its original pristine condition when work is completed. Such site restoration can become quite expensive with gravel roads.
Experimental roads have been built using plant fibre. There are abundant sources of plant fibre available in the form of sawdust, shavings and wood chips from the forestry industry. The advantage of using plant fibre in the construction of temporary roads, is the relatively low cost of site restoration. The plant fibre used to build the temporary road can be scattered about the site. Once thoroughly scattered, there will be negligible visible traces of the former road and the scattered plant fibre will break down through natural processes of decomposition.
Unfortunately, the attempts to make temporary roads out of sawdust, shavings and wood chips have proven to be unsuccessful. The sawdust, shavings and wood chips tends to slide past each other. They do not bind or bridge and are unable to provide an adequate driving surface.